What was containment?

Containment was the central American Cold War strategy aimed at preventing the spread of communism beyond the territory the Soviet Union already controlled, without provoking a direct war between the superpowers. The doctrine was first articulated by American diplomat George F. Kennan in his Long Telegram from Moscow on February 22, 1946, and developed further in his anonymous article The Sources of Soviet Conduct, published under the pseudonym X in Foreign Affairs magazine in July 1947. Kennan argued that Soviet leaders were committed to expanding communist power but were also cautious, and that the United States could prevent further expansion by applying counterforce at every shifting geographical and political point.

President Harry Truman adopted the strategy and made it official policy with the Truman Doctrine, announced on March 12, 1947 in a speech to a joint session of Congress requesting aid for Greece and Turkey, both threatened by communist insurgencies. The Marshall Plan, launched in June 1947, applied containment economically by offering more than 13 billion dollars to rebuild Western Europe and reduce the appeal of communism. The Berlin Airlift of 1948 to 1949 contained Soviet pressure on West Berlin without resorting to force.

NATO, signed on April 4, 1949 by 12 founding members, applied containment militarily by committing the United States and Western European allies to mutual defense. National Security Council Report 68, NSC 68, drafted in 1950 under President Truman, called for a major American military buildup to contain communism worldwide. The Korean War from 1950 to 1953 was the first armed test of containment when the United States and a UN coalition pushed back the North Korean invasion of South Korea.

The doctrine was extended to Asia under President Dwight D. Eisenhower with the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization in 1954 and the Eisenhower Doctrine in 1957 covering the Middle East. Critics inside the United States included John Foster Dulles, who proposed a tougher rollback strategy, and later figures who argued containment had drawn the country into Vietnam. Containment evolved over decades to include detente in the 1970s, the Reagan rollback approach in the 1980s, and ended successfully when the Soviet Union dissolved in December 1991. Containment is one of the most studied strategic doctrines in American history.